After Mayor Bloomberg writes a check to plug the gap in the NYC budget, maybe he could come out here and do the same for us.

Now I know who affords those big RV type buses on the road with the dish antennas on them.

Also on that page stories about Mark Madoff, son of Bernie, committing suicide.

Good greif, look at the first comment there.

khovalyg
1:18:00 PM
Dec 12, 2010

Ex New Yorker – Nope; unions aren't the problem; UNREGULATED corporations are, & it's a corporatist-fascist goal to kill all unions. Capitalism is inherently anti-life; it sees human beings, employees, as liabilities rather than assets despite the fact that without workers, the corporations would never make their profits. Capitalism can only 'live' by constant growth like a cancer; it has to increase its profit$ at all costs. Corporatists would love to return to the 'good old days' when they had indentured servants & slaves. Now the capitalists steal our jobs & send them overseas for cheap labor, & at home they try to murder unions, one of the few viable voices left against corporatist-fascist oppression."

The state of NY has a $200 billion unfunded public employee fringe benefit liability.

That's the fault of capitalism and corporations?

Ben is probably right. It's not really the fault of the unions but the managers and decision makers. Workers are seen as another expense, a liability, another 'account payable', something that stands in the way of maximizing profits and dividends, something to be eliminated if possible. That's the way big business works and the downfall of many big cities is they start working like a big business and view their own population as the workers.

There is a simple way to live completely without those evil corporations - simply move to a corporate free paradise.

Since the Soviet Union self destructed and China gave up on anti-corporatism, there is still North Korea, Cuba and, possibly, the Union of Myanmar. I think they even have free healthcare well up US standards of a few decades ago and you can lose weight on the daily food allowance.

Thanks
JK

No, thank you for that loony comment. The linked story is about government employee pensions.

Not quite like NYC...Portland still allows aggressive pan-handling.

"Not quite like NYC..."

NYC actually has some non-govt jobs downtown and a retail environment that works.

Actually my post was in response to Ben's posting a N Y daily news commenter:
...Capitalism is inherently anti-life; it sees human beings, employees, as liabilities rather than assets despite the fact that without workers, the corporations would never make their profits. Capitalism can only 'live' by constant growth like a cancer;....

Thanks
JK

Some years back WillyWeek had a story on the pension bomb built by Vera, the police union and friends. I believed it to be true then and now I know just how prescient WW was. And Vera has her statue as a founding mother on the Eastbank Esplanade.

Speaking of women leaders we should remember Nina Bell who was behind the suit against the City of Portland that is ending now with the completion of the Big Pipe. I believe Vera was also involved in the settlement of that suit. Was the final cost, not yet paid, a billion and a quarter or a billion five?